Facebook is building a 1.4-million-square-foot data center on
the outskirts of Des Moines, Iowa, according to a local report.

With a price tag estimated at $1.5 billion, the massive
facility would join the data centers Facebook has already built in Prineville,
Oregon and Forest City, North Carolina, as well as a third under construction in
Luleå, Sweden.

Facebook is among the many web giants that are now building
their computing facilities in an effort to reduce the power and the money needed
to operate online services used by hundreds of millions of people across the
globe.

Facebook did not
immediately respond to a request for comment, but The Des Moines
Registerreports
that the social networking giant is the previously unnamed company behind the
planned facility, dubbed Project Catapult. The paper cited Iowa “legislative
sources” who said the facility would be “the most technologically advanced data
center in the world.”

It will certainly be among the largest. Apple’s operates a
500,000-square-facility in western North Carolina, and Facebook is augmenting
its 330,000 Prineville, Oregon data center with a second, identical facility
just next door.

Like Oregon and North Carolina, Iowa has become a hotbed for
internet data centers. Google runs a facility in Council Bluffs, Iowa, while
Microsoft operates a data center in West Des Moines. Facebook’s facility is set
for Altoona, a small town north-east of Des Moines.

Companies such as Facebook are attracted to such places in
part because local governments provide tax breaks for these enormous computing
facilities. According to local reports, Facebook has asked for additional tax
credits for using wind power to help the new facility.